HC Deb 17 March 1859 vol 153 cc276-92
SIR JOHN TRELAWNY

, who was imperfectly heard, said he rose to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the nature and extent of certain privileges enjoyed by Her Majesty's Household Infantry, and mentioned in the Report of a Commission appointed on the 12th day of April, 1858, as "the Privileges of the Guards;" also, to inquire whether such privileges have a tendency to produce dissatisfaction or diminish the efficiency of the army. In bringing forward this Motion he thought it unnecessary to dwell at all on the reputation gained by the Guards, as that was a matter well established and generally known; and if it were urged that vested interests were involved in the question he had to submit to the House, he was of opinion that it would he proper in some way to save existing vested interests. He should make no statement not borne out either by the celebrated Memorial of the Guards or the Report of the Commission made last year. The memorial was signed by live great and illustrious names, but he thought at the time it should have been visited with severe censure, as a manifesto like that created a precedent which if followed by others would be found most inconvenient. The brigade of Guards consisted of 6,300 men. It was officered by three full colonels and by three lieutenant colonels, who according to the memorial were colonels in the army. Then there were the majors of the several battalions, who, according to the same memorial,— and he was not aware whether any change had been made since,—were full colonels in the army. All captains in the Guards were lieutenant colonels in the army by virtue of the Royal Warrant of 1687. These officers had very great advantages in the army, for it was in their power, after serving five years on the staff, to become full colonels in the army, whereas a lieutenant colonel or major of the Line could not be on the staff without having passed an examination at Sandhurst. The lieutenants of the Guards were equal to captains in the Line, an honour which was accorded to them for their conduct at Waterloo, but he must say he thought it a very impolitic way of rewarding the army. The 7th Fusiliers had a similar honour accorded to them, namely, that the first appointment! should be a lieutenancy, but it was discovered afterwards to be undesirable, and was taken away. What was good for the 7th Fusiliers might not be bad for the Guards. In consequence of this system an old and experienced officer of the Line might find himself placed under the authority of a young officer of the Guards, and he thought it was desirable that this distinction should be abolished—the officers of the Guards being compensated in some manner for the loss of the privilege. He believed it was impossible that there could be a finer body of troops than the brigade of Guards; but it was possible to buy gold too dearly, and when it was considered that the services of the Guards were not available in the Colonies, or generally against Her Majesty's enemies in India, or elsewhere, he doubted whether, on the whole, the country was not paying too dearly for this branch of the army. The Guards consisted of 261 officers, 429 sergeants, and 5,600 rank and file—in all 6,300. The Guards cost £204,706, and the Line £1,872,567; but if the Line troops cost the same as the Guards the charge for them would be £2,289,620. There were also a number of allowances to the Guards, such as making up accounts, £140; agent of Foot Guards, £83; stock purse fund, £11,167; major's allowance for coals and candles, £344; solicitors to Foot Guards, £205 6s. 3d.; table allowances, £5004; making a total of £16,943. He had heard it said that the officers of the Guards enjoyed an annual amount of leave, and that the bulk of the regimental duty was performed by the colonels, the adjutants, and the non-commissioned officers. On what ground was it that the officers of the Guards were allowed greater privileges in this respect than were enjoyed by officers of the Line? He had also been informed that, while the Line regiments had been reduced after the war, the Guards were numerically stronger than they were before the war, and he wished to know whether this statement was well founded? There were other peculiar privileges which were possessed by the Guards. He understood that the two senior captain lieutenant colonels of the Guards arrived at the grade of colonels in five years; and he thought if that were so the privilege was one that ought not to be continued. Now, what was the relative position of officers of the Guards and the Line on active service? A captain in the Line who had the brevet rank of major commanded his company, and went into action as its captain; but the captains of the Guards, although they went into action as captains, being on the roster as lieutenant colonels, were exempted from duty in the trenches he thought this was a very objectionable privilege, for the presence and influence of the captains might have a most beneficial effect upon the conduct of their men in the trenches. He had been told that in the Crimea the captains of the Guards, being upon the roster as lieutenant colonels, went into the trenches only once a fortnight. General Canrobert took one night in the trenches and the next in reserve, and Sir Colin Campbell set a good example to his troops, by following the French system, and going regularly into the trenches; but it was said that in a short time an order was issued that generals of division should not do duty in the trenches. Another inconvenience was felt in the Crimea from these privileges. On one occasion two companies were wanted for detachment duty at head-quarters, and they were both taken from the Highland Brigade. It was said that they should be taken alternately from that Brigade and from the Guards, but it was understood that it was not the custom of the Guards to give detachments. With regard to promotion it seemed to him, as far as he understood the statements made to him, that the Major Generals, Colonels, and Lieutenant Colonels in the Guards arrived at their degrees much sooner than the same officers in the Line. It might be said that these were particular cases and the effect of old privileges which were now altered; but, then, he found that a large proportion of the full colonels of Line regiments were officers in the Guards. With regard to the Staff, he found thirty officers on the Staff who had been in the Guards, and that was a great disproportion, when it was remembered that the Guards numbered 6,300, and the Line 78,594. With regard to courts-martial he thought it very disadvantageous that a young officer, because he was in the Guards, should be President, by precedence over older Line officers. It was made the same as if a student of law were to take precedence of a Judge. He also thought that new appointments should be made by the responsible Minister of State, instead of by the colonels of regiments, although it might be said that the responsibility was accepted formally by the Minister. He would not trouble the House with documents, but there were many which he could submit in detail to a Committee.

Motion made, and Question proposed— That a Select Committee be appointed, to inquire into the nature and extent of certain privileges enjoyed by Her Majesty's Household Infantry, and mentioned in the Report of a Commission appointed on the 12th day of April, 1858, as ' the Privileges of the Guards;' also, to inquire whether such privileges have a tendency to produce dissatisfaction or diminish the efficiency of the Army.

GENERAL PEEL

said, he would take that opportunity of thanking the hon. Baronet for his courtesy in postponing his Motion the other evening, in order to give him an opportunity of being present; as, from the position in which he stood to the army, he should have been very sorry to be absent when this discussion took place. The hon. Baronet, when the Estimate was before them expressed alarm lest his Motion should be put a stop to on the ground of prerogative. The House must see that if this Committee were granted it would be, not a Committee to inquire into the privileges of the Guards, but into the prerogative of the Crown, from whence, as the fountain of honour, all these appointments proceeded. He thought that the hon. Baronet would, at all events, be obliged to alter the Motion, so that it might be fur an Address to the Crown instead of for & Committee of the house. Her Majesty had on so many occasions instituted inquiries into the condition and the privileges of the army, that he certainly would not take any technical objection in reference to the prerogative so as to get rid of the hon. Baronet's Motion. If the hon. Baronet had not slightly referred to some inquiries which had taken place he should have thought that he was entirely ignorant of the fact that during the last few years there had been no less than four Royal Commissions, in addition to a Committee of the House, which had investigated this subject most thoroughly. He would add that the constitution of those Commissions was by no means favourable to the Guards. The Commission which sat in 1854 consisted of the Commander in Chief, two Line officers, one Artillery officer, one Engineer officer, one Guards officer, and five civilians. The Royal Commission of 1858 consisted of the Commander-in-Chief, three officers of the Line, one of Artillery, one of Engineers, one of the Guards, and five civilians. But the inquiry of all others to which he wished to call attention was the Committee of the House of Commons he wished particularly to call their attention to the constitution of the Committee—it was the Committee which sat on the Ordnance and Army Expenditure, and reported in 1857. Lord Seymour, the Secretary at War, Mr. Hume, Mr. Cobden, Colonel Anson, Mr. Walter, Sir William Molesworth, Lord Charles Wellesley, Sir James Graham, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and Mr. Banks were among the members of that Committee; and in all there were thirteen civilians and two military officers. With all deference to the hon. Baronet he thought that the House would place greater reliance on the arithmetic of a Committee of which Mr. Hum; and Mr. Cobden were members than on that of the hon. Baronet. The question of the expenditure of the Foot Guards came before the Committee incidentally; and in their Report they stated that four Committee were informed that officers of the Foot Guards had some advantages over the infantry of the Line, and that this inequality occasioned dissatisfaction in the army, while it was also attended with increased expense. The Foot Guards are a force constantly ready for any emergency, and have always, when occasion required, been the first to be sent at short notice on foreign service. They have always been peculiarly regarded as the force whose duty it is to attend the Sovereign. They have exclusive privileges, most of which are of ancient date; but it has been stated in evidence before us that exchanges between the Guards and the Line are not unfrequent, and the advantages, to some extent, are available to the Line. As to the question of expense, the Line officers have allowances for barracks, &c, which are withheld from officers of the Guards. If, in estimating the expense of a regiment of Guards, including officers and men, these allowances are taken into consideration, it will be seen by a Return in the Appendix that the cost is £48 11s. 3d. per man in the Guards against £46 19s. 6d. per man in the Line. The excess of expense is £1 11s. 9d. or about 1d. per day, being the present amount of extra pay which a soldier in the Guards receives more than a soldier in the Line. That was the statement in the Report of the best qualified men who composed the Committee; and that opinion was not hastily arrived at, for there were no less than 500 questions put by the Committee on the very point to which the hon. Baronet had referred, and it was impossible that any Committee could have gone more fully into detail. The hon. Baronet seemed to think that the duties of the Guards might be performed by regiments of the Line; but he (General Peel) did not think there could be a greater mistake than that; it was impossible that those duties could be properly performed unless they had regiments accustomed to remain constantly in London. The hon. Baronet asked for a Committee to inquire into the privileges of the Guards, which, he supposed, gave rise to great jealousy; and he stated what those privileges were, and when they were granted; but he forgot to say that when the privilege of captains ranking as lieutenant colonels was granted, which was in 1687, there were very few regiments of the Line in existence, and surely they could have no just ground to complain of that which existed before they were constituted. But the hon. Baronet was quite mistaken as to what the present privileges of the Guards were. The privileges of the captain and lieutenant colonels of the Guards had been altered by the Warrant of 1854. Previous to that period an officer of the Guards who obtained a company became lieutenant colonel, and went on obtaining rank as colonel. But now matters were very different. The rank of lieutenant colonel did not commence counting towards a colonelcy until the officer became a mounted officer in the Guards. It took, on an average, eight years to become a mounted officer in the Guards, and then he was only in the same position as a lieutenant colonel in the Line, who served no more that five years to attain the rank of colonel. Thus, in the case of a lieutenant-colonel in the Guards, it required thirteen years to obtain the pro- motion of colonel, whereas in the line it required only five years. The benefit to the officers in the Guards was, that when he became a captain and lieutenant colonel he might possibly, by exchanging with an officer in the Line, become the commander of a regiment, and in five years a colonel. But this exchange would not be altogether a voluntary arrangement between the two officers. It could not take place without the approval of the commanding officer of the regiment, and the sanction of the Commander-in-Chief; and be believed he knew enough of the determination of the Commander-in-Chief to maintain discipline to enable him to say that his Royal Highness would not allow a man to take the command of a regiment whom he did not think to be perfectly deserving of it. The Duke of Wellington was always in favour of these exchanges, upon the principle that, if any peculiar advantages were possessed by the Guards, they should be thrown open for exchange to the Line, and in but few instances did he ever object to such exchanges. The hon. Baronet seemed to be of opinion that great jealousy existed in the Line in consequence of the supposed privileges of the Guards. That he (General Peel) thought was somewhat of an exaggeration; for he did not think that more jealousy existed in the Line with reference to the Guards than might be supposed to exist on the part of an ensign towards a lieutenant, a lieutenant to- wards a captain, a captain towards a major, and so on. Jealousy might equally exist between two regiments of the Line where, from peculiar circumstances, the promotions in one had been more rapid than in the other. It was all a matter of chance. But upon this point he himself might bear evidence, having served for nine years in the Line and three years in the Guards. He first served six years in the Line before entering the Guards, in which he never obtained the slightest promotion. He then returned to the Line, where he obtained promotion much quicker than if he had remained in the Guards, and became senior to officers in the Guards under whom he had previously served; but he was not aware of the slightest jealousy in consequence. He served in the Rifle Brigade, and in the 71st Foot, and they always felt themselves the equals of the Guards, of whom they never entertained the slightest jealousy. He would not follow the hon. Baronet into those minor details, which many officers of the Guards understood much better; but he was totally mistaken in supposing that the captain and lieutenant colonel in the Guards had any advantage which the captain and brevet major in the line did not possess. Quite the contrary. When they were doing regimental duty they did it as captains; but when they were doing duty elsewhere they did it according to their brevet rank. The hon. Baronet was also mistaken in supposing that an officer, when first commissioned in the Guards, was appointed direct without examination. So far from that he went through precisely the same examination as in any other regiment, and he did not believe that an officer would be allowed to enter the Guards until he had passed an examination and received a certificate. There were other hon. Members in the House who could explain better than he the details of the joint-stock purse and so on; but if the hon. Baronet wished to make a Motion respecting the Guards he could not obtain further information than was already before the House in the Reports of the four Commissions and the Committee referred to. It would therefore he his (General Peel's) duty, on the part of the Government, to oppose the Motion of the hon. Baronet fur the appointment of a Select Committee, on the ground that such Committee was perfectly uncalled for, that every information the House could require was before it, and that the privileges of the Guards had been possessed by them for such a number of years that it would he impossible now to take them away.

VISCOUNT BURY

said, he hoped his hon. Friend would not press his Motion to a division after the lucid statement of the right hon. and gallant General; but, if he did, he (Viscount Bury) having served in the distinguished rank of Ensign and Lieutenant in the Guards for a short period should feel sufficient esprit de corps to say something on their behalf. He quitted the service before the Warrant of 1854 was in force; and therefore never had been affected by it. He was consequently an impartial witness. He remembered the time when every newspaper was filled with paragraphs headed, "The Guards and the Line," the object of which was to sow dissension between those portions of the service; but he believed that the old feeling of dissension between the Guards and the Line had long since subsided, and surely when the soil of the Crimea was red with the blood of gallant men in both divisions of the service, who fell fighting side by-side in the trenches, the feeling of fraternity then exhibited between brothers in arms must have done much to obliterate all remains of ancient animosities. His hon. Friend had said he wished to do away with the privileges of the Guards. But he had not throughout his whole speech told the House what those privileges were. All he had said might be styled the mere utterance of truisms about the position, of the Guards, but he had not mentioned any instance in which that position pressed heavily upon the Line. His hon. Friend said he did not wish to take away his personal privileges from any member of the Guards; he would allow him to retain them, or he would offer him a pecuniary compensation in their stead. But suppose, for instance, a senior ensign and lieutenant were to accept the pecuniary compensation offered by his hon. Friend, and an officer junior to him were to prefer retaining his nominal lieutenancy, which would be the senior officer the senior who had sold his lieutenancy, or the junior who retained it? The duty roster would be plunged into confusion. There was another point His hon. Friend said that a distinguished officer of the Guards, and a relative of his own (Viscount Bury) had written a memorial on this subject, and that he ought to have been severely censured for committing a breach of discipline in doing so. But he begged to remind his hon. Friend that the warrant which that memorial complained of inflicted on his gallant relative and others severe pecuniary loss, and it was not to be supposed, in this great commercial country, that a man was to submit to a loss of that kind without his doing his best to complain of such a loss. This was almost the only matter touched upon in that memorial. Then his hon. Friend said that no officer of the Line could become a member of the Staff unless he went upon the half-pay list, and that this was not the case with the Guards; but he (Viscount Bury) ventured to say, that unless an officer were in command of a regiment, it was not necessary for him to go upon the half-pay list before entering on the Staff. Then, with regard to expense, he (Viscount Bury) could only say, that his commission in the Guards had cost him £1,200, whilst in the Line it cost only £450, and though he received the honorary rank of Lieutenant, he only had the pay of an Ensign. Complaint had been made, also, of the way in which the officers of the Guards did their duty, and of the way in which business was distributed in the Crimean war; but this was a complaint on a matter of military discipline and detail. After all the brilliant services of the Guards and their notoriously high state of efficiency, he (Viscount Bury) thought it quite unnecessary for him to dwell for a moment on that point. No part of the hon. Baronet's speech referred to any privilege which weighed upon the Line and exonerated the Guards unduly; and if the privilege possessed by the Guards did not press upon the Line, he was sure no regiment would grudge the Guards such a privilege. Then, cases of general officers were brought forward; but it must be remembered that no man could be a general officer in the Guards without having served for a much longer time than the Warrant of 1854 had been in force. Those cases must, therefore, have been under the old system, to which the regulations introduced by the present Warrant did not apply. He thought the House would agree with the right hon. and gallant Secretary for War that the Motion of the hon. Baronet was inadmissible, and that the majority would concur with him in dividing against it.

COLONEL NORTH

said, that as an officer who had served the whole of his time in the Line, he hesitated not to declare that there had never been the slightest jealousy or ill-feeling between the Guards and the Line. As regarded the letters that were written on the subject, it was a universal opinion in the army that they were not written by soldiers, but by mischievous persons who wished to create a bad feeling between the Guards and the Line. Why should there be any ill-feeling? The Returns which he then held in his hand showed that in the regiment of Coldstream Guards, out of twenty captains, not less than sixteen began their service in the Line, and were then transferred to the Guards; that in the Grenadier Guards thirty-nine were in similar circumstances; and in the Scots Fusilier Guards the same number. There was no reason at all why officers of the Line should not at their pleasure and with the sanction of the commanders of their regiments, be transferred to the Guards. With regard to first appointments, there were very few fathers who, unless they resided in London, and had an opportunity of looking after their sons, would wish to place them in the outset of life in a position which was exposed to all the dangers and temptations of the metropolis. In the next place, officers in the Guards must either be members of the aristocracy, of rank, or of wealth, because, of all regiments, they were the worst paid. An ensign in the Line was found barracks, coals, and candles, and the cost of his servants was much less than in the Guards. It should also be borne in mind what an enormous expense the Guards were put to for the purchase of their commissions. An ensign in the Guards paid £1,200 for his commission; an ensign in the Line, £450. The ensign in the Guards got 5s. 6d. a day, and no allowances, unless he was in barracks in the provinces. The ensign in the Line received 5s. 3d., and the allowances he had enumerated. A lieutenant in the Guards paid £2,050 for his commission; a lieutenant in the Line, £700. The lieutenants in the Line got 6s. 6d., and their allowances; the lieutenant in the Guards. 7s. 4d., and no allowances. A captain in the Guards paid £4,000 for his commission; a captain in the line £1,800. A major in the Guards paid £8,300; a major in the line £3,200. A lieutenant colonel in the Guards paid £9,000; a lieutenant colonel in the line, £4,500. As long as the sale of commissions existed it was only just that those who paid these high rates should receive more remuneration than those who paid a smaller sum. True, the hon. Baronet had proposed his Motion with very great good temper. Nevertheless, he had fallen into the commission of those blunders which must be expected from civilians when they took upon themselves to meddle with military matters. The hon. Baronet said that for a junior officer to find fault with his senior was a cafe of insubordination, the fact being that the rules of the service afforded him the amplest opportunity for so doing. At all half-yearly inspections the General commanding called on even the drummer or the private soldier to come forward if they had any complaint to make against their superior officers; and, if an officer chose to draw up a written statement, against his superior officer he might insist that it should be transmitted through the commanding officer of the regiment to head-quarters. With regard to the table allowance, which was put down as a privilege of the Guards, he believed that, so far from being a "privilege" of the Guards, they had had a more frequent use of the table only because they did most duty in London: for, two years ago, when the 66th Regiment were doing duty at St. James's Palace, the table was found for them as well as the Guards. The fact was that the dinner was provided not exclusively for the Guards, quâ Guards, but for the men who happened to be on duty at the Palace. As to staff appointments the rule was that no regimental field officer was allowed to hold permanent appointments. Those officers in the Guards who were lieutenant colonels were merely regimental captains, the same as the regimental captains in the Line. The hon. Baronet seemed to think that officers in the Guards had a privilege in taking their seats at courts-martial; whereas the fact was that at those courts-martial the officers took their places in conformity with the dates of their commission; and if a captain in the line were there who was a brevet lieutenant colonel, he would take his seat according to the date of his brevet. All he (Colonel North) could say then was, that during the number of years he had served in the army he had never known the slightest jealousy or ill-feeling to exist between the Line and the Guards. He did not mean to say that when he found himself in stupid quarters in the country he did not wish himself in London. That was another affair. But the only rivalry which prevailed between the Line and the Guards was that which he hoped would always continue, and that was which should best do their duty to their Queen and country. Did not the Guards do their duty at Alma and at Inkerman? The hon. Baronet stated they never took colonial duty. Did not they go to Canada? Were they not ready to go wherever they were ordered? In fact, whatever duty the Guards had been called upon to perform, they had discharged it in a manner that reflected the highest honour upon them, and which had gained for them the admiration of their brethren of the Line; and he trusted that so long as this country had a Sovereign, so long would there be Guards, and he only hoped they might ever be composed of as loyal and gallant a body of men as were now to be found in the Brigade of Guards.

SIR HARRY VERNEY

said, he had served both in the Line and in the Guards, and he had never heard at the mess of any regiment of the Line in which he had served any feeling of jealousy expressed with respect to what were called the "privileges of the Guards." On the contrary, he believed it was a subject for pride and satisfaction common to both, and he thought it attended by political advantage that our military system was one which induced men of high rank and possessing great wealth to enter the army. He considered it very advantageous that men who possessed fortunes of, from £20,000 to £50,000 a year, and such instances had occurred, were attracted to the service; for what feeling in the world could prompt them in identifying themselves with it, but that of honour and the wish to serve their country? He knew it was so considered by the officers of the army themselves, and especially, that these men, when they were in the Guards, were ready to go on active service to all parts of the world. They had gone to Canada, to Portugal, to the Crimea, and he believed it was pretty well understood that they desired to go to India. Again, he thought the duties performed by the Guards could not be so satisfactorily discharged by the Line, the soldiers of which, from the tendency they showed to get into "scrapes" when brought to London, were unfitted for the service devolving on the Guards. He hoped, therefore, the hon. Baronet would not press his Motion to a division, for the result would be to show there was a division among the Members of that House on a subject on which he (Sir Harry Verney) was sure there was none in the army.

GENERAL CODRINGTON

said, that he was afraid the hon. Baronet would not consider his opinion an unprejudiced one, as he had spent a great part of his life in the Guards; but he could assure him that the most important part of it—that spent in active service—was in the Line. He must say that he never found any of that jealousy to which the hon. Baronet had referred, nor was it to be expected he should—for the Guards took their turn of duty in the trenches at Sebastopol quite as readily as the troops of the Line. The hon. Baronet had talked of the Report of the Commission of 1858, as if it had mentioned in a prominent way the privileges of the Guards; but, on reference to the document, he found that was not the case. The only expression in that report which at all warranted the use of those words had reference to the rank of the Guards. The point which the hon. Baronet really had in view, if he might take the various letters published with his name attached, was, whether there were to be any Guards at all—and certainly, if they were to bring the regiments successively to London, and make the Guards perform the duty now done by the Line, of course there would be no Guards at all. But he certainly felt that, if the regiments of the Line coming from abroad must necessarily take their turn of duty in the Metropolis, they would be in a very great mess. It would never do to have fresh recruited regiments of young soldiers without noncommissioned officers spread over the face of London. Not only that, but there was the expense to the officers to be taken into account, and if they brought young regiments of the Line to London, they would give to each regiment of 1,000 men no less than £1,800 a year over and above the allowances now given to the Guards. There was also another point of considerable importance. It was of great moment that officers, non-commissioned officers, and men should be able to do their duty in London with forbearance and good temper, and he thought in more than one instance had been shown the great advantage of the complete temper of the Life Guards and Foot Guards in keeping the ground on public occasions. But there was a question of still greater importance. It had been felt to be of the utmost consequence by our most distinguished Commanders in Chief, such as the Duke of Wellington and Lord Hill, to have battalions in London that could form a nucleus for foreign service whenever an army was to be sent abroad, and hitherto, whenever that service had been performed, the very first troops they laid their hands upon, as being effective in all respects, were the battalions of the Guards. The hon. Baronet had referred to service in the Colonies, but Colonel Dunne, who had been examined before the Committee upon the subject expressed his opinion positively that he did not wish, and the Line did not wish, to see the Guards taking Colonial duty. Financial economists had made charges against the colonels of regiments with respect to the sums received for clothing. They had even called them cabbaging colonels, and by the agitation that they had got up on the subject, the system was at length put an end to. What was the end of it? They had had the defalcations at Weedon, and the country bad been put to an extra expense of £100,000 a year; therefore, it, did not follow that matters were not better' managed when they were loft to the regimental officers. Then, with regard to the question of leave: by the Queen's regulations one half of the officers of a regiment could be absent during the six winter months, in regiments of Line as well as Guards. There was no difference in respect to payment between the Guards and the regi- ments of the Line. The men were paid daily. That was the system in the army generally, and it was carried out in the Guards also. As to the relative rank of the Guards, the system had been established as to the lieutenant colonels and captains, as long ago as the reign of James H., in the year 1687; but it was not only in the Guards that such disparity of rank existed, nor was it confined to times of peace. He himself knew an officer who was out in the Crimea, who was of only eight years' standing in the army, and, as a brevet major, went into the trenches and commanded captains of sixteen and eighteen years' service. If search were made in the Army List, instances would be found of colonels of very few years' service commanding majors of twenty-five and thirty years' service, and captains of sixteen and seventeen years' service. With regard to the statement that Sir Colin Campbell went into the trenches with his division, other Generals did the same duty; but as the whole division was not necessarily sent complete to the trenches, it was arranged, as far as his recollection served, that they should attend to their duties of division in camp, when the division was not sent entire to the trenches. If there was any information that he could give upon the subject he would be most happy to do so, and he must say that the hon. Baronet had brought forward the question in his usual fair way.

GENERAL SIR W. F. WILLIAMS

said, that as an officer of the Line and an officer of the Guards had been listened to, perhaps they would listen to an officer of the Artillery. The hon. Baronet had made a sidelong hit at the very existence of Guards on a former occasion. He had said, "If there are to be Guards at all, why not select from the other regiments as well?" He should be very sorry indeed to see the Guards given up as a separate corps, or that they should be selected from the other regiments. He was sure that such a plan would cause great heartburning and raise feelings that were not consonant to the feelings of a British officer. As to jealousy felt by other branches of the service against the Guards, in his branch there wore 20,000 men in its ranks; be himself had served in all parts of the world, and had in the course of his career been acquainted with many regiments of the Line, but he had never heard any expressions of jealousy on the part of the Line or the Artillery, or expressions in any way deroga- tory of the Guards. In his position, as commandant of a large garrison at Woolwich, he must have heard them if they had been used, but he never had heard them, and he did not believe any such jealousy existed. As a general officer be did not think that any corps could either in the event of social evils, or of invasion, do service in London in case of need so efficiently as the Guards. Men would be wanted who were perfectly conversant with London, and who would know their best way to any particular point to which they were ordered. Then, as to the system of purchase, he was most strongly in its favour, and he hoped that no Chancellor of the Exchequer would advance the public money to promote the abolition of the system. If purchases had taken place, they were purchases over the Artillery, sometimes in favour of the Guardsman, and at other times of the Linesman; but still he was in favour of a system which did much to give the country a constant supply of young officers. He had seen a Line regiment changed three times, while in the Artillery they were promoted to the rank of second captains at the age of forty. He sincerely hoped that the House would by a decided majority negative the Motion of the hon. Baronet.

MR. CONINGHAM

said, he had not had the good fortune to be present at the early part of this discussion, but he concurred in what he knew were the general views of his hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Sir J. Trelawny). The real question at issue was this, whether it was for the advantage of the army or the country that the privileges of the Guards should be maintained? If the duties of the Guards were confined to London or to attendance upon the Sovereign the matter would he of little consequence, but as every one knew that the Guards were among the most distinguished regiments in the service, as their boast was, that wherever there was war they were present, it was clear that their position must be viewed as a military one. [Laughter]. He meant that they must be regarded as troops serving in the field and not as Household troops. Their privileges were so great and so indefensible that he confessed he was at a loss to understand what arguments could be brought in their defence. Look at the army in the Crimea. There they found that the predominance of the chief commands was given to Guardsmen; and then look at their duties, at their position on the staff at the favouritism shown in placing them on the staff. He had some acquaintance with military men, and he must say his experience differed from that of the gallant General who bad just spoken. He believed there was great jealousy of the privileges enjoyed by that corps. He had unfortunately not heard the debate in its earlier stages in consequence of his having come down to the House at a somewhat later hour than usual, and he did not, therefore, think he should pursue the discussion with advantage. [Ironical Cheers.]. He would, however, give those hon. Gentlemen who were so ready to indulge in exclamations due warning that, although he might be foiled on the present occasion, he would come back to the charge and renew his onslaught on privileges, the existence of which be believed to be detrimental to the best interests of the army. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] Yes, he was prepared to maintain that if the subject were fully investigated before a Committee of that House it would he found that they were privileges which could not be defended by logical argument. He should seize that opportunity to conclude his speech, by stating that he would give his most energetic support to the hon. Baronet the Member for Tavistock, and by expressing to him his thanks for having brought forward his Motion.

SIR JOHN TRELAWNY

said, that he must reiterate his opinion that the Guards possessed considerable privileges and the two principal he might name as exemption from colonial duty, and superior pay. It had been said that the expenses of the Guards were not materially greater than those of regiments of the Line; but he had heard, on good authority, that two regiments of the Guards had been offered to-the Indian Government, who declined the offer on the ground of the cost which its acceptance would involve; and also that if the whole of the service were paid on the standard of the Guards, the increased expense would be not less than £500,000.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 31; Noes 135; Majority 104.